Losing Wife, Man Becomes Cook and Caretaker to His Sons

By JENNIFER MASCIA

Published: January 18, 2011

Most of the time, Jose Ventura, 53, is unflappable. A building superintendent who presides over 86 apartments in Inwood, he fields calls from tenants day and night and battles for turf with gangs that sometimes leave their drugs and guns behind. Mr. Ventura also looks after his two young sons.

Every year since 1911, The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund has provided direct assistance to children, families and the elderly in New York. Articles will appear daily through Jan. 30, illustrating the difference that even a modest amount of money can make in easing the struggles of the poor.

Last year, 10,428 donors contributed $6,280,242, which was distributed to those in need through seven New York charities.

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But when asked about the boys’ mother, Yoely DeJesus, who took her own life in 2009, at the age of 28, his eyes grow red and his countenance crumbles.

“I love her,” he said of Ms. DeJesus, his second wife. “I think about, ‘Why she did it?’ She has two young boys.”

Mr. Ventura, who was a rice farmer in the Dominican Republic, said his wife did not seem depressed during their nine-year relationship, the last four years of which was long-distance, as she ran a beauty salon in Santo Domingo and he prepared a life for her and their sons in New York.

But shortly before her immigration paperwork was approved, he said, she took the $16,000 she had saved to open another beauty salon and invested it with neighborhood hustlers, who promised a return on the investment but stole it instead.

“They tricked her,” said Brian Ventura, 23, Mr. Ventura’s son from his first marriage, which ended in 1993. “They told her, ‘If you give me $1,000, I’ll make it double.’ ” It is a swindle, he said, that preys on the young and the naïve and is not uncommon in the Dominican Republic. “She believed in those people,” he said, shaking his head.

Too ashamed to confess that she had lost their savings, Jose Ventura said, his wife drank rat poison. Two months later, her immigration approval arrived by mail.

“She should have talked to me,” Mr. Ventura said, “because the money’s nothing.”

Ms. DeJesus left behind a letter that read: “Jose, I’m sorry, I love you. I want you to take care of my two sons.”

Mr. Ventura brought his sons Andy, now 8, and Darwin, 6, to New York from the Dominican Republic. The three live rent-free in a basement apartment in one of the buildings he supervises. Their adjustment to life here was hard, particularly when compounded with their grief.

They were so young when their mother died that at first, Mr. Ventura said, “they didn’t believe it, because she looked like she was sleeping.” Her body had laid on her bed after her death. “They said, ‘Mommy, Mommy, let’s go to school, wake up,’ ” Mr. Ventura recalled. “All the neighborhood cry, everybody. Because she was a young woman.”

Andy and Darwin began attending Public School 152 Dyckman Valley, a Children’s Aid Society community school, but they did not speak English and were afraid to ask their teacher for permission to use the bathroom. They, and their story, came to the attention of Viviana Ramirez, a social worker at the school.

“He’s an excellent father,” Ms. Ramirez said of Mr. Ventura during a visit to his apartment one afternoon.

Because the Children’s Aid Society is one of the seven agencies supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund, Ms. Ramirez was able to secure $1,300 in Neediest Cases money in 2009 and 2010 for furniture, food, school uniforms and winter coats for the boys.

Andy wants to be a boxer, a baseball player and a police officer when he grows up; Darwin just wants to be a police officer. But Mr. Ventura hopes to eventually take them back to the Dominican Republic. Here, he said, there are “too many gangs.”

“I’m a super for two buildings,” he added. “I see.”

In February, his third wife, who is 29 and a former co-worker of his second wife, will join the family here from the Dominican Republic. Until then, “I’m the chef over here,” Mr. Ventura said proudly. “I cook very well.” It is a skill he said he learned from his mother and honed cooking in restaurants in New Jersey.

“He can cook better than any woman,” said Brian Ventura, who also lives in Inwood.

Though Mr. Ventura still sobs when talking about his second wife, the boys no longer spend most days crying.

“You know why?” Mr. Ventura said. “I give them so much love.”

A version of this article appeared in print on January 19, 2011, on page A18 of the New York edition with the headline: Losing Wife, He Becomes Cook and Caretaker to Sons.